Original subtitles

L-S-A- D-CD- R-A!

Isadora!

(I Frantic melody)

(Cheering)

(Wolf-whistling)

(Commentator) Isadora Duncan, the barefoot dancer,

was banned here today, following an incident at the Symphony Hall.

Boston Sentinel, October 20, 1922.

Isadora Duncan, the Bolshevist, and her red husband, Soviet poet Yessenin,

were deported today after pushing a grand piano through the window

of their 14th-storey suite at the Temperance House Hotel.

Indianapolis Examiner, November 23, 1922.

Orgy in dancer's Riviera studio.

Captain Patterson thwarts Duncan's suicide attempt.

Journal de Nice, October 5, 1926.

The car stalled a few feet from the river.

The chauffeur attempted to start it with the handle,

but failed to realise it was still in gear,

with the result that it rushed forward and plunged into the Seine.

The bodies of the dancer's two drowned children

now lie at rest in Madame Duncan's Paris studio.

Figaro, April 20, 1913.

Soviet poet Yessenin scores love poem to ex-wife Isadora Duncan in blood

after slashing wrists.

His body was found today in Leningrad hotel in which they spent honeymoon.

Pravda, December 28, 1925.

I killed the Madonna! I killed...

(Commentator) Isadora strangled at Nice.

Daily Telegraph, September 15, 1927.

Crowds of 10,000 thronged the Pére Lachaise crematorium today

at the funeral of the decade.

The Paris Conservatory Orchestra played Air on The G-Sfr/rzg

as final homage was paid to this great American dancer.

(Narrator) The constant companion of Isadora at the end other life

was the writer Sewell Stokes.

He has written a play about her, a novel,

and the definitive account of her last days at Nice.

I suppose Isadora led the most sensational life

of any woman who's lived in this century.

I only knew her during the last year of her life.

And to the young man that I was then, she still had tremendous glamour.

She was warm-hearted. She was lovable. She was exasperating.

But why am I telling you about Isadora in the graveyard of Chelsea Old Church?

Well, it was here,

as a young girl, when she first came to England, absolutely penniless,

that she slept among the tombstones,

but, nevertheless, determined to become a success.

From the start, she was always a very ambitious young girl.

(Narrator) Isadora Duncan taught herself to dance on the beaches of California.

By the time she was 16, she was dancing professionally

and trying to support her family.

But Broadway in 1894 had no interest in her dancing -

it was uncontrolled and uncommercial -

so she gave private recitals in the drawing rooms of the wealthy

and eventually earned enough for a passage, by cattle-boat,

to a place where she could enjoy freedom.

She took the entire Duncan family on a quest that ended on a hilltop near Athens

where she started to build a temple to rival the Parthenon.

Wanting to break free from traditional ballet,

Isadora found in Greece a liberating force

that was to lay the foundations of a new dance -

a dance inspired by life and nature

as seen through the art of ancient Greece,

a dance which was to make her famous throughout Europe.

The Greek ideal sowed the seeds of the vision

which was to pursue her for the rest of her life.

She longed to create a school where the spirit of the dance,

for her the spirit of life itself,

could be taught to the younger generation

who in turn would carry her message all over the world.

And so, at the height of her solo career,

when she was one of the best-known names in Europe,

she founded a school of dancing.

And by the age of 30,

when already self-indulgence was beginning to weaken her powers,

this school had become an obsession.

Oh, that's nice.

(Narrator) Her pupils were of all nationalities, rich and poor,

but they rarely stayed with her for long.

As the school moved from country to country,

always searching for a permanent sponsor,

promising pupils disappeared,

new, untrained ones joined to take their place.

One or two faithful disciples always stuck by her,

ready to take over whenever she was away

earning the money that kept everything going.

But large symphony orchestras and Greek temples

left little over to pay the rent

and supply the needs of 4O growing children.

The only thing that never worried her was a shoe bill.

But apart from her ideas on free expression in the dance,

she did more than throw away ballet slippers.

Victorian corsets, long hair and high-buttoned boots

were all thrown out of the window.

In the early 1900s, Rodin painted and sketched her,

d'Annunzi0 celebrated her in verse.

Her life, her art, caught the imagination of the day.

She became the patron saint of the art world.

- Man. - (Girls) Man.

- Earth. - Earth.

- Universe. - Universe.

- Friendship. - Friendship.

Caring for this large and demanding family

was far from being a substitute for some lack in her personal life.

Isadora had a baby of her own, Deirdre.

The father was the famous theatrical designer, Gordon Craig.

She refused to marry him.

The memory of her parents' unhappy marriage never left her

and she swore never to make the same mistake herself.

Anyway, life was too full and rich to be shared with only one man.

And if Rodin or d'Annunzi0 weren't available,

she contented herself with lesser mortals.

(Man) Oh, you shunned people. I, at least, do not shun you.

I come forth into your midst.

I will be your poet.

I shall be more to you than to any of the rest.

(P Thumping piano)

Run along, dear.

Isadora, aren't you feeling well?

I've never felt happier in my life.

I am in love.

In love? With a sewing machine?

(Laughing) No.

The man who makes them. Paris Singer.

The millionaire, dear.

(Narrator) And she wasn't kidding.

Mr Paris Singer's sewing machine factories were hers to command.

In 1908, he sent his wife and family off to Egypt in his yacht

and brought Isadora home in triumph.

Paris was a great art-lover and collector.

He admired Isadora, Palladian architecture,

the Madeleine and Versailles.

And down at Oldway, his chéteau at Paignton in South Devon,

he collected them all together.

Paris Singer was ruthless, impulsive and constantly worried about his health.

But Isadora saw him as her knight in shining armour.

She called him Lohengrin.

This, he said, was to be her fairy castle.

To Isadora at that moment, it was simply a fascinating mausoleum

of commerce and bad taste.

But also, she saw what it might become -

a Mecca for the faithful, a magnificent, shining temple of art.

(Isadora) How do you get in?

(Narrator) What did it matter if everything was solid gold? So much the better.

Her dream of the future, to see all America dancing -

just as Walt Whitman had seen all America singing -

seemed just around the corner.

- B00! - (Laughing) Oh, Lohengrin! What is it?

Oh, it's nothing. Just a trivial gift I picked up.

I thought it might amuse my goddess if she was feeling bored.

Pull it. Pull it.

Lohengrin, how can I thank you?

I'll dance my gratitude to you. I'll dance all night.

I'll dance until the dawn.

- Er... - And...

(P Harps playing)

Right. There.

And again.

Stop.

And once more, girls.

(P Harps playing)

OK, that's enough.

(Narrator) After the er... honeymoon,

Paris settled back into his hypochondria and his water cures,

and Isadora saw little of him.

The arrangement was straightforward.

Lohengrin would provide a home in France for her precious school,

but Isadora must live with him here, in splendid solitude.

Little Deirdre was her only pupil now.

A year passed and a second child was born - Patrick.

But this was small consolation for her loneliness.

Devon was an artistic wilderness.

Bohemian visitors were frowned upon with disdain at Oldway

and even dancing palls in the end if one dances only for oneself.

(I Melancholy tune)

Oh, lovely Pussy, 0h Pussy, my love,

what a beautiful Pussy you are. You are, you are.

What a beautiful Pussy you are.

Pussy said to the owl, "You elderly fowl,

"how charmingly sweet you sing."

I'm terribly sorry, madam. I'm just clearing the tray.

Have you ever thought of going on the stage?

(Chuckles) Me?

L0hengfln!L0hengfln!

Oh, my dear, I've just made the most wonderful discovery!

Another one? That's very clever of you.

Has there been trouble in the servants' hall?

The trouble is John shouldn't be in the servants' hall.

His place is on the stage!

Oh, really?

Now, read out loud. And don't be timid.

But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east and Juliet is the sun.

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon...

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,

my love as deep.

The more I give to thee, the more I have,

for both are infinite.

My God, he has talent.

Lohengfln?

Lohengfln!

You called?

Really, Lohengrin, this young man has genius.

He must be trained at the best school of drama.

Of course, he'll need a little allowance to live on. And plenty of...

Plenty of shirts, suits, shoes, cravats, hats. Underwear.

- And all of the very best quality. - I knew you'd understand, dear!

(Narrator) From now on, there was an extra place for breakfast.

♪ Oh, the sewing machine, the sewing machine

J“ A girl's best friend

♪ If I didn't have my sewing machine, I'd have come to no good end

J“ But a bobbin, a bobbin, a pedal, a pedal

J“ And wheel, the wheel by day

J“ So, by night I feel so weary that I never get out to play J“

Lohengrin! Lohengrin, stop, please. He's disappeared!

And I do not know where he is!

(Dog whines)

Don't you pretend you're not responsible. Just look at these unpaid bills!

You've cut off his allowance and I know why!

It was just to humiliate me!

You swine!

You... you bloody capitalist!

And if the poor boy has committed suicide... murderer!

(I Wavering tune)

(Dogs whining)

Have you ever thought of becoming a musician?

(Narrator) Thus a pattern was set up which blighted the rest of their relationship.

Singer would buy her the Metropolitan Opera House one day

and sell it the next to spite her.

They were still together but saw less and less of each other.

But she did have the children, who grew up happily

and were a constant source of pleasure to her.

(I ERIK SATIE: "Gymnopédie No.1")

Singer provided for their needs with his customary extravagance.

She was now living in France,

a rather more suitable place than South Devon for a favourite mistress.

There was a studio in Paris. a chéteau at Versailles

and, best of all, his latest gift to her -

a fine, new school just built on the heights of Passy.

For the moment, he'd returned to his wife,

so Isadora was left with her children,

free to plan new dances and new performances.

In the spring of 1913, everything seemed set for a wonderful future.

Isadora lamented the death of her two children in her own way.

The car had plunged into the Seine and both were drowned.

Life after the death of her children was a nightmare.

There was another child, but it was stillborn.

She took to drugs and alcohol. She was in despair.

The school became a grotesque mockery.

When war came and the pupils were dispersed, it was almost a relief.

The school was turned into a hospital,

and for a time Isadora became a Red Cross nurse.

But even the war couldn't blot out her personal tragedy.

Singer disappeared and his millions with him.

When a tour of South America was offered in 1916, she took it.

But in Rio, the years of alcohol and lost training proved fatal.

Her performances were a disaster,

her private life a scandal.

Times were now changed.

Where once she'd danced in drawing rooms

to an audience of admiring princes and prime ministers,

she now danced in a small-time brothel where they didn't give a damn.

Her true agony failed to penetrate the alcoholic haze in which she lived.

She was just another drunken American showing off.

(I "La Marseillaise")

The despair was repressed,

her visions, her obsessions, returned.

In Paris, she created a dance to express the spirit of France at war

and at the same time, her own struggle to create a new school out of the ashes.

Whatever her weakness,

she was a woman of extraordinary courage.

Two years after the war she was still carrying the torch.

At the Champs-Elysées Theatre, on July 3rd 1920,

she made a final appeal to the French nation.

(Applause)

You know why I'm here today?

I need money for my school.

For the children who will dance in the future.

Children like the orphans of the terrible war.

There is no better way to put happiness into the hearts of the children

than to teach them to dance.

For to dance is to live!

And that is what I want- a school of life!

Give it to me.

Ask your president to give it to me.

If not, I shall have to go to Russia, to the Bolshevists.

- (Murmuring) - Yes, Russia.

And I will say to those Bolshevist leaders,

"Give me your children.

"And if I do not teach them to dance like gods,

"assassinate me."

(Audience murmuring)

And they will either give me my school

or they will assassinate me.

For if I do not have my school, I would rather be dead!

"Come to Moscow. We will give you a school and 1,000 children.

"You may carry out your plan on a vast scale."

(Narrator) What the President of France had declined,

the Russian government welcomed.

So, full of renewed hope, Isadora and one faithful pupil

set off on the long journey to Moscow, full of wonderful visions.

- You're on a diet. - Passion! Like a suckling pig, that is.

The Russian people had obviously recognised in her a fellow revolutionary.

There would be celebrations, banquets and speeches.

By the time she arrived, she'd written one of her own.

Comrades, people of Moscow, greetings.

My pupil and I have long awaited, with eager expectancy,

your joyous peasant faces.

Your tumultuous reception has moved me deeply.

And I know that this welcome promises great things for the future.

From this day forward,

we shall be united in friendship and love for ever and ever.

Amen!

(Narrator) Spending the night in the open was nothing new to Isadora,

for months, she'd passed nights under the stars in Greece

when building her temple.

And before that, when she'd arrived in England on a cattle-boat long ago,

she'd slept in the Green Park.

But then she had not had the comfort of a Fortnum & Mason hamper.

Gordon Self ridge, who'd given it her as a going-away present,

had no idea how useful it was to become

in this Moscow station suddenly filled with starving Russian children.

(I Rousing anthem)

(Children laughing)

(Calling out)

(Isadora laughing, shrieking)

Whoo!

(P Children singing)

(Whooping)

Come on!

(Shrieks)

Oh, no!

(Children laughing)

(Narrator) Of course, they'd never really expected her to come.

They had thought she would never give up the easy life of the West

to suffer, with them, the birth pangs of a new Russia.

The economy was in ruins,

desolation caused by the revolution everywhere.

In Moscow in 1921,

it needed a superhuman effort just to keep alive.

There was near-famine, no fuel to keep out the Russian winter,

and an acute housing shortage.

They'd promised her a school.

Well, here was a gutted Tsarist palace. She could have that.

She needed beds. Here was timber.

She could make them herself.

The only thing of which there was no shortage was homeless children.

They came to the school in their hundreds,

seeking refuge rather than tuition.

But before they could have either, there was much work to be done.

And all on a diet of potatoes and champagne.

Whatever the circumstances, there was one luxury she never gave up.

After six weeks,

she was invited to meet some leading members of the Communist Party.

She'd obviously proved herself. It was something to celebrate.

Our work.

(Shrieks)

(Laughs)

(I Operatic melody)

Did you murder the Tsar just to take his place?

(Murmuring)

Even the dead whose belongings you've stolen

would have made tougher revolutionaries.

You goddamn bourgeois usurpers.

You're just a load of bloated fish and you stink.

Communists? My sweet ass!

(I Mellow piano)

(Narrator) After almost a year, the classes were in progress.

She was starting from the beginning again,

as she had so many times before.

The first lessons began with the arm positions,

each with a symbolic or ritualistic meaning

and taken from the frescoes, paintings and statues of Ancient Greece.

The temperature of the studio was more Arctic than Hellenic.

Lack of fires, thin tunics and bare feet

made Stoicism an essential part of the curriculum.

(Laughter outside)

(Laughter inside)

(Man shrieking)

Hai! Hai!

(Laughs maniacally)

(Girls shrieking)

- (Speaks Russian) - Who do you think you are,

bursting into this temple of art with your gang of hooligans?

(Speaks Russian)

Are you Duncan? Yes? You understand English?

I do not understand what you're doing here.

And who is this wild animal?

This is famous poet. Most famous poet in Russia.

- Sergei Alexandrovich Yessenin. - A poet!

(Greets him in Russian)

- (Exclaims) - Enchanfée/

(Declaims poem)

(Narrator) Yessenin was the new Russian Pushkin.

No less a person than Maxim Gorky had said so.

He was a peasant, a poet of the people

enjoying the indulgence of a new regime.

He was also an epileptic, a drunkard, a lecher, a layabout and a thief.

Isadora found him irresistible.

The fact that they couldn't understand each 0ther's language

didn't bother them at all.

They communicated in mime and when this failed, they drew pictures.

He needed the medical attention Russia could not afford.

He needed fresh horizons to broaden his art.

Isadora would show him the world.

But she would never have contemplated the idea

if the authorities had not threatened to close down the school.

They could no longer afford to support it.

A quick, lucrative tour of America

seemed the only way of averting disaster.

On landing, they were put on Ellis Island as suspected revolutionaries.

They were accused of coming to the USA to sow the seeds of anarchy.

Their books were suspected of being subversive,

their music of being a cleverly coded message.

They were communist agents.

In 1922, the USA had reason to fear such people.

But Isadora pronounced all their charges preposterous

and in Boston the tour commenced with an all-Russian programme.

She promised the authorities there would be no trouble whatsoever.

(Shouting)

There was trouble, too, in their private lives,

They were married now and still on the honeymoon

that had started a few weeks ago in Leningrad.

- (P Balalaika) - (Yessenin declaiming)

mew

Their rows usually took the same form.

He would start off with an unintelligible tirade,

she would get hold of a luckless interpreter to translate.

His art was great, immortal, it would live forever.

When she died, her art would die with her.

Her dancing was a joke. She would be quickly forgotten.

What nonsense the boy talks.

My message of beauty and freedom will never die.

It'll be kept alive by the children I've inspired.

- (Shouts) - And live on in their children.

And their children, and children for generations to come!

Now you tell him that!

No!

(Isadora shrieks)

(Continues shouting)

(Narrator) In Chicago, the police were alerted

to prevent a repetition of the Boston incident.

Yessenin caused trouble wherever he went.

He was turned out of hotels and banned from theatres.

His kleptomania knew no bounds.

He even robbed his own wife when the opportunity arose.

It was not a little ironical

that in order to get him out of Russia and into America,

Isadora had had to break one of her strictly held commandments -

never to marry.

The police had their doubts about her, too.

Dancing to Russian music was one thing,

but actually to express the Russian Revolution

in a dance which symbolised the oppression of the masses

and the overthrow of government

was a very different matter.

(I Orchestra playing climactic music)

(starts)

(Screams)

(I Light-hearted melody)

(I Triumphant anthem)

(I Crescendo)

(Shouting)

(Booing)

(Yelling, catcalling)

What the hell's the matter with you people?

Don't you like Russian music?

Are you just afraid of a Russian Revolution?

In Russia, there is freedom! Here, you don't know what it is.

I came here to teach you people what freedom really is.

And your capitalist press darn near ruined my tour.

I am not an anarchist! Or a Bolshevik!

My husband and I are revolutionists!

But they put us on Ellis Island.

If anybody here speaks their mind, the government prosecutes them.

Well, they prosecute you if you drink.

- That doesn't stop you drinking, does it? - (Calling out)

Some of the liquor I drank here would have killed an elephant.

It darn near killed me.

Yeah, it's a very good thing I'm going back to Moscow.

(Cries of agreement)

You should all read Maxim Gorky.

He says there are three kinds of people -

the black, the red and the grey.

Now, the black people are people who like to terrorise,

people who want to command.

Like the Kaiser and the Tsar.

The red people are people who rejoice in freedom.

Freedom!

And the grey people are like...

well, they're like this hall.

(Angry voices)

And that goes for your statues, too.

They're not Greek gods.

They're false. And you're as false as they are.

You don't know what real is!

- (Yelling) - This... this is real!

(Uproar)

You were once wild here!

Don't let them tame you!

(Narrator) They were deported from America, kicked out of France

and finally landed back in Russia.

Yessenin made off with what money was left.

Isadora never saw him again.

(I PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY: Waltz from "The Nutcracker" on piano)

(Shrieking, cheering)

Darlings, how lovely! Where's Wilma?

- Here. - Oh, Wilma!

Oh, it's so wonderful to be back!

Oh, I can't tell you how often I've wished I was here.

Oh, what a nightmare.

Boston, Ellis Island, Indianapolis. Oh...

But you've brought money for the school?

- There's very little left of what you sent us. - Oh, I haven't any.

You've no idea how expensive it is replacing smashed-up furniture.

In the end, no decent hotel would take us.

- Yessenin? - Yes. Didn't work out.

We're not together anymore.

- Man. - (Repeat in Russian)

Earth.

Universe.

Friendship.

(Children) Eugh!

(Narrator) To save the school, she would have to start on yet another tour,

this time accompanied only by her impresario and a pianist.

Surely there would be a profit this time.

Their destination was the Volga district-

and beyond, Siberia and China.

(Isadora) Dear Wilma, we go from one catastrophe to another.

Arrived in Tashkent without a kopek,

spent two days wandering around the streets, very hungry.

Zenon Melchik slept in the theatre,

I next door in a little house without water or toilet.

All night long, I kill bedbugs and listen to the dogs howl.

I haven't had soap or toothpaste for a month. Trés amusant

I dance to large publics of communists and workmen.

No one has money for tickets except the new bourgeoisie

and they cordially detest me.

But courage. It's a long way, but light is ahead.

My art was the flower of an epoch.

That epoch is dead and Europe is the past.

The little, red, tunicked ones are the future.

Plough the ground, sow the seed

and prepare for the next generation that will express the new world.

With them I see the future.

It is there and we will dance to the Mnfh Symphony yet.

Love to you and the children. P.S. Let's hope Siberia turns out better.

(Backfires)

J“ Oh, bury me not

J“ On the lone prairie

J“ Where the wild coyotes

J” Will howl o'er me J”

(Narrator) Things were not better in Siberia. They were worse.

No one came to see her.

How to get money? She contemplated selling her love letters.

She took them with her wherever she went.

A newspaper had once offered her $1,000 for them,

but she never parted with them.

They, at least, were some consolation

for a career that had seemed so promising

on the beaches of California in the '90s

and which she now realised had come to an end

on the Russian steppes in 1924.

Indifference from the Russians troubled her less than rejection by America.

She loved America as much as her grandparents had done,

who had crossed the plains in a covered wagon and fought the Indians.

Exile was bitter.

J“ Oh, bury me not

J“ On the lone prairie

♪ In a narrow grave

J“ Six foot by three

- J“ Where the buffalo pause... J“ - (Isadora) Oh, my God!

- Fool! - J“ On a prairie sea... J“

What have you done? My letters!

Look, they're all over the place.

(Narrator) She never reached China,

but back in Moscow she determined to have one more go at the authorities.

Oh, my dear, you don't have to teach me the true meaning of communism.

In my heart I've been a communist all my life.

I'm the queen of communists.

I've come hereto help you create the land

in which every man, woman and child shall inherit the fruits of the earth,

united in a vast brotherhood of love.

(P Stirring anthem)

(I Chorus singing)

(Applause, cheering)

(Whistling)

When I came to Russia,

I had no idea of giving public performances.

I only wanted to give the greatest joy and the greatest beauty

to the children of the workers.

You see here children of the workers and peasants.

And aren't they fine, beautiful children?

Doesn't it prove they can be cultured and intelligent?

I want all the children in Russia to be like them.

But I can only give my art to a very few

because my school doesn't have a studio large enough for them to dance in.

I have asked those in power

to give me a big arena in the summer

and a big, heated place in the winter,

where I could teach a thousand children my art.

But three years have passed and nothing has been done.

I have waited in vain.

Tomorrow, I leave by plane to tournee Germany.

So... I must say goodbye.

But I will never give up my dream of teaching thousands of your children.

And you must help me!

Art is so much greater... than government.

(Narrator) Her appeal was ignored.

She said goodbye to her pupils.

She never saw any of them again.

(Isadora) Berlin, Eden Hotel.

December 16, 1925.

Dear Wilma, I am stranded here in this awful city.

I've signed three contracts and been swindled three times,

the last for Hanover.

When the time came, the agent didn't have the money for the railroad ticket.

I cannot move from here

and since four weeks, the hotel will serve no more food.

An American friend brings me a slice of roast beef a day,

but he has no money, either.

Yes, I was terribly shocked about Sergei's suicide,

but I wept and sobbed so much because of him while he was alive

that I've exhausted my capacity to suffer over him.

Me? I'm having an epoch of such continual calamity

that I'm often tempted to follow his example.

Only I'll walk into the sea.

Now, in case I don't do that, here is a plan for the future.

I have almost persuaded the French Communist Party to give me a school.

I promised them I would bring my best pupils from Moscow

to act as monitors.

If the school can be started in Paris for all the workers' children,

I have great hopes.

(Narrator) Isadora wandered forlornly among the wreckage of her career.

The dream of a new school in France remained only a dream.

Now in her middle 40s, engagements in Europe came with growing infrequency.

But in some circles her name was still hallowed

and more than once, she was asked to attend and to give her blessing

to a recital in her honour.

Ready?

(I Ballet music)

- May I call you Isadora? - You can call me anything you like.

(Applause)

I lay this wreath on the grave of my hopes.

Faster!

This is the way to die!

Faster!

Faster!

Oh...!

(Narrator) Isadora landed on her feet in Nice, broke.

She had mortgaged all her property years ago

and sent Yessenin's estate, for 400,000 francs, to his parents.

She lived on credit at the Negresco for a time,

then became a Riviera bum,

always ready to suffer a wealthy hanger-on,

good for an improvised performance at a party,

easy copy for a journalist hard up for a story,

always on the lookout for a nice, young poet.

Will you dance with me, madame?

Je suis enchantée, monsieur.

J“ Thanks for the buggy ride, thanks for the buggy ride

J“ I had a wonderful time

J“ No smell of gasoline, just an old-fashioned team

J“ It was a wonderful treat to hear the patter of horses' feet

J“ My boater nearly broke, I took it as a joke

J“ It was all new to me

J“ Cos I was used to riding in a big limousine

♪ But buggy-riding loving sure beats any machine

J“ Now, although I lost my pride, thanks for the buggy ride

J“ I had a wonderful time J“

Isadora, the press are still here.

Coming.

(Narrator) Isadora Duncan's studio, Nice. Wednesday, 14th September 1927.

Press conference.

Well, can I say, then, that you'll be given a high price for your memoirs?

You can say that I hope to make enough money to start my school.

And then I shall show you 500 children

dancing to Beethoven's Mnfh Symphony. Whoo!

- Do you consider, as a dancer... - I'm not a dancer. I hate dancing.

I am an expressionist... of beauty.

But... but you are one of the greatest dancers in the world.

I think you can say that.

(Whispers) I'll tell you a secret.

I don't know how to dance at all. Not at all.

If you put your hand on your heart and listen to your soul,

you'll be able to dance as well as I do.

And that's all there is to it, my friend.

Well, if you'd care to take a few poses that occur to you, we'd be most grateful.

As a dancer, I'm really a great orator.

My art is an expression of life.

My dancing is of the spirit...

not of the body.

When my body moves, it's because my spirit moves it.

If my art is symbolic of any one thing,

it's symbolic of the freedom of women.

My body is the temple of my art.

I expose it as the shrine... for the worship of beauty.

Age is only self-hypnotism.

Oh, wait! Oh, leaves. Yes. Autumn leaves.

- (Isadora) Ah, there's my buggy boy. - Oh, very effective, yes.

I don't need your props for inspiration.

I need music.

Beethoven. Wagner.

One of the immortals.

- (I Music starts) - (Laughs)

J“ Blackbird, blackbird, singing the blues all day

J“ Right outside of my home

J“ Blackbird, blackbird, why do you sit and say... J“

- (Shrieks) - J“ There's no sunshine in store?

♪ All through the winter you hung around

J“ Now I begin to feel homeward bound

J“ Blackbird, blackbird, bound to be on my way... J“

- Look out! No, no, no! - J“ Where there's sunshine galore... J“

- (Shrieking) - J“ Pack up all my cares and woe

♪ Here I go, singing low, bye-bye, blackbird

J“ Where somebody waits for me, sugar's sweet, so is she

J“ Bye-bye, blackbird

J“ Here nobody loves or understands me

J“ Oh, what hard-luck stories they all hand me

J“ Make my bed and light the light I'll be home late tonight

♪ Blackbird, bye-bye ♪

- (Car starts) - Adieu, mes am/ls/

Je vais é Ia gloire!

(Screams)

(I LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN: "Ode To Joy" from the "Ninth Symphony")

♪ Blackbird, blackbird

J“ Singing the blues all day

J“ Right outside of my door

♪ Blackbird, blackbird

J“ Why do you sit and say

J“ There's no sunshine in store?

J“ All through the winter you hung around

J“ Now I begin to feel homeward bound

♪ Blackbird, blackbird

J“ Bound to be on my way

J“ Where there's sunshine galore

J“ Pack up all my cares and woe

♪ Here I go, swinging low

J“ Bye-bye, blackbird

J“ Where somebody waits for me

J“ Sugar's sweet, so is she

J“ Bye-bye, blackbird

J“ Here nobody loves or understands me

J“ Oh, what hard-luck stories they all hand me

J“ Make my bed and light the light

J“ I'll be home late tonight

J“ Blackbird, bye-bye

J“ Here nobody loves or understands me

J“ Oh, what hard-luck stories they all hand me

J“ Make my bed and light the light

J“ I'll be home late tonight

♪ Blackbird, blackbird

♪ Blackbird, bye-bye ♪